The Hunger Games Guide to Social Media Marketing

If used correctly, social media can yield amazing results. It can generate a buzz around your product or business, build anticipation in your audience, and create awareness about your brand. There’s a reason why experienced marketers insist that social media marketing should be an essential part of your marketing campaign.

At Savage Global Marketing, we’ve seen brands generate a tremendous amount of interest by using well-planned strategies. One of the best examples of great social media marketing happened before the Hunger Games movies were released.

While the books were quite popular amongst teens and young adults, the movies wouldn’t have garnered as much interest as they did, if the marketing team hadn’t implemented an impressive social media campaign to generate interest. Here’s what we can learn from this campaign.

Plan

The Hunger Games social media marketing strategy was so wildly successful because it was superbly planned. The strategist behind the scenes actually spent an entire year just figuring out the details and developing a comprehensive strategy. Of course, this isn’t always necessary, but planning in advance is important.

That would give you some breathing room to conduct your research and explore unconventional ideas instead of just following the crowd as most brands tend to do. Planning and creating a strategy tailored for your brand will give you the best results. You need to outline your goals and requirements, and create the campaign around it.

You should consider what your business needs are. Do you want to increase awareness for your brand? Get more visitors to your website? Generate leads and conversions? Ask yourself these questions and devise the strategy around the answers.

Study Your Audience

The marketers behind The Hunger Games studied their audience very thoroughly before they devised the campaign. They understood who would be interested in their movie, where they would be, and what their likes and dislikes would be. The Hunger Games novels are targeted at teens and young adults.

This audience is one of the most tech-savvy. They are present on social media and utilize it very often. The marketers recognized this fact and started focusing on them early in the game. Because this audience was tech savvy and social media savvy, the marketers knew they had to come up with something interesting.

They couldn’t just create a mundane marketing campaign and expect young adults to be impressed. That’s one of the reasons why they developed such a complex social media marketing strategy. It involved creating 13 Facebook Pages, a Tumblr blog, several Twitter handles, a Google Plus page, etc. In essence, they created an elaborate and thorough campaign because they knew their audience would appreciate it.

Make Fans a Part of the Brand

One of the most effective and rewarding strategies that the marketing team behind The Hunger Games implemented, was creating identification cards. Fans could apply for citizenship and get an ID card. This ID granted them access to exclusive content and made them feel a part of The Hunger Games world.

Marketers did more than that, they implemented Fan Friday to showcase fanart and works, connected personally with them on YouTube, and rewarded fans with the best content and engagement.

They created a community around the movie and that kept fans engaged and interested for a long time. This is a very effective strategy. You can make your prospective customers feel like they’re a part of your business community. That would encourage brand loyalty.

Treat Every Platform Differently

The social media marketing team behind The Hunger Games used every network differently. Facebook had exclusive games and content, including the District. Twitter audience could unlock screenings and create themed games. Tumblr had a fashion blog called Capital Couture, while YouTube featured fanworks and videos.

The marketers used different platforms differently to get widespread engagement. This just generated interest and helped the audience connect with the brand. While you might not be able to generate fan frenzy, you can use social media marketing effectively to create interest and promote your brand. You just need to ensure this is done skillfully and creatively.

If you have any questions at all about social media marketing or our other services, you can contact us at Savage Global Marketing. You can get in touch with us by filling in this contact us form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. You can also give us a call on 954 383 7092.